TAP Air Portugal - Lost daughter's luggage and compensation for missed onward flight

Stevey

Ok - so don't know where to begin here, and hope this is the right forum.

My daughter flew from US to UK this weekend via Lisbon with TAP Air Portugal. There are so many issues from the last 48 hours, but the facts as they stand are:

1) She flew into Lisbon from San Francisco, and her outbound flight was changed with just over 24 hours notice, arriving in Portugal 2 hours later than intended. The change meant she missed her connecting flight to Manchester by 5 minutes. They then offered her a flight the next day to London, so would need to stay in Lisbon overnight, and then she would have flown to London and would have needed to wait a further 8 hours before getting a flight to Manchester, over 24 hours after when she was due to arrive. We therefore booked her a separate Easyjet flight direct from Manchester instead, and got her home the same evening.

2) My daughter's luggage is lost. She is being told that she should have filled in a missing luggage form in Lisbon, but she joined 2 queues (lost and found, and serviceair) for a total of 3 hours before having to leave to make the Easyjet flight, and is now being told she should have filled in a missing luggage form, even though no one in either lost and found or the serviceair desk in Lisbon told her that.

3) We are trying to contact TAP Air and every time they are just saying she should have filled in a form, even though she was not offered that option.

So, we are not sure what to do - the airline are determined she should have filled a form in, and that it is needed to find her luggage - she has a luggage tag with details, but can't get anyone to take that detail and locate the bag. Every time she rings them in Portugal it takes an hour to get through, and she is also often disconnected.

Also, given they changed the flight last minute, and she missed her connection, and also our additional costs booking an additional flight to avoid a 24hr delay in Portugal, do we have any recourse? There are so many people on Twitter etc saying TAP have never refunded them etc as well. 

In reality she just wants her bag back, has anyone got experience or suggestions on how to track her bag, given we have the luggage tag.

Thanks.

Caz3121

was the baggage tagged to Lisbon or Manchester? 

daveyjp

If the bag was tagged through to Manchester, but the next Manchester flight wasn't until next day there is still time for it to turn up.  We lost a bag once and it took a week to get to us.

If she has an iphone an airtag may be a worthwhile purchase.

Stevey

Caz3121 said:

was the baggage tagged to Lisbon or Manchester? 

Thanks Caz - The luggage tag says both flights so we're pretty certain it was tagged to Manchester. What didn't help was some Portugese ground staff saying to her (not specifically about her bag) that it would likely not be loaded to Manchester if she wasn't on the flight - that isn't my understanding but highlights the incompetence levels she was dealing with.

sheramber

If her luggage was checked through to Manchester it would not be available in Lisbon. it would be kept separate to be loaded onto the  next Manchester flight.

bagand96

sheramber said:

If her luggage was checked through to Manchester it would not be available in Lisbon. it would be kept separate to be loaded onto the  next Manchester flight.

I agree.  If it was tagged all the way to MAN then it wouldn't turn up on the belt at Lisbon. 

What further complicates things is that when your daughter didn't board her re-arranged TAP flight to Manchester (via London) the bag would likely have been removed from that flight. There are different security requirements for unattended luggage travelling. 

The bag will almost certainly be in Lisbon. All you can do is keep trying with the airline/airport/handling agent, but without a Property Irregularity Report (PIR), which is the form the airline are talking about, you might have an uphill battle. 

In terms of compensation for the delay, read up on EC261 which covers this. Off the top of my head I can't recall whether it covers you abandoning a trip mid itinerary and if that would entitle you to anything. 

Caz3121

Stevey said:

 What didn't help was some Portugese ground staff saying to her (not specifically about her bag) that it would likely not be loaded to Manchester if she wasn't on the flight - that isn't my understanding but highlights the incompetence levels she was dealing with.

what they have said is correct for security reasons. I have a number of times been on flights where a passenger has failed to board (maybe stuck somewhere in the airport) but their bags have been loaded so there have been delays whilst the passengers baggage was located in the hold and offloaded from the flight (this is common in Europe and I believe dates back to the Lockerbie disaster)
The bag will very likely be in Lisbon, it should be entered as a found bag and entered into the WorldTracer system which will match with lost baggage reports.
I don't agree that a report should have been raised in Lisbon for a missing bag as it was not missing...it would have not been due to come out on the belt as it would go a different route to be transferred to the onwards flight. The request would have been to get the baggage returned in Lisbon as was not continuing with the booked journey however this can often take many hours.
There is a chance that TAP may send the bag to Manchester as unaccompanied baggage (additional security protocols) as it was tagged there however if they cannot see a report they may well just keep it aside until a report appears.
I would suggest asking TAP at Manchester (or a central number) if they could check the system for current location and possibly arrange for it to be sent to Manchester for your daughter to collect